Use Of U.s. Military In Somalia Is Worth The Risk

November 29, 1992|By DENIS HORGAN; Courant Columnist

The first sensation, incomplete as first sensations almost always are, was, "Uh, oh. This could be a mistake."

The United States -- you and I -- may well be sending soldiers to Somalia. The Marines are being dispatched to nearby waters. Our children and those of our neighbors may be inserted into achingly dangerous circumstances there. Some may not come back. What will we say to their terribly grieving parents and friends? True enough. Sad enough.

But another consideration exists at the side of the exquisitely human concern over such consequences:

Isn't this exactly what we should be doing with our strength, our gifts and what we have been blessed with the ability to do?

People are dying in Somalia. By the hundreds of thousands. They are starving. Too much of the food and aid being sent to them by a horrified world is being stolen. They are being brutalized by thuggish, greedy warlords. Lives, always hard, are made unbearable, fatally so, by cruelty and vicious depradation.

But is this any of our business? Don't we have enough problems of our own?

If this isn't our business, what on earth is?

This is not politics. This is not ideology. There is absolutely nothing to be gained by it. It is a caring for strangers, skeleton-thin and at death's door. It is a matter that we can do something about. It is an obligation noteworthy only if we ignore it. What would we stand for if we do otherwise than help?

This is a fairly fundamental question at any time, more so in this post-Cold War moment. We have a military of stunning power, the most extraordinary technology in the hands of the most skilled people imaginable. But any nation with great wealth or grim resolve could develop that. What distinguishes us will be what we do with it.

The Persian Gulf war saw the application of that technology and skill coupled with a sense of will in the cause of denying aggression its evil fruit. But there was another application shortly thereafter that warranted its own praise. Many of those

same soldiers were assigned to protect, too briefly, the battered Kurds being savaged and harried by the miserably resilient tyrant, Saddam Hussein. We could help, and we did.

But we can't help everyone, it is said. Why not try? It's hard to imagine a better use of our resolve and ability.

When we first defined ourselves, we spoke with direct eloquence that "all men are created equal, that they are endowed, by their Creator, with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." The Founders did not say that "all American men are created equal," that Americans alone enjoy these "unalienable rights" which, accordingly, are then as unique to America as the bison and bald eagle but beyond the hope of others.

No, all humankind has these rights, we declare flatly, whether they are the sons of Africans or Asians or Britain-rooted settlers. Believing that, we cannot deny that the children of Somalia deserve a fighting chance to achieve them; and, believing that, we have a human interest in helping -- irrespective of whether we share any special commercial or philosophical link to that part of the planet.

There is a risk, it is said, that we will become the world's policemen, unwelcome and distrusted. If there is any such risk in sending our young soldiers to make sure that starving people get the food that is being taken from them, then that is a risk absolutely worth taking. What is at risk if we turn away, if we do nothing? Weigh the two risks and see which you consider the more worthy.

If we have the power to do exactly what police officers do best -- respond to emergencies, contain harm, prevent the preying upon of the weak by the ruthless strong -- then we could be called far worse than that for failing to exercise it. This is no subtle situation. People are dying.

The sending of U.S. troops to Somalia is hardly a reckless, bullying action. In fact, we could well wonder why it has taken us so long to do so. If we can save a few of those folks, then let others call us anything they want.

Let's hope the system someday casts medals and awards as handsome for such a humanitarian activity as it does for the more traditional military service. But, lacking that, being considered peacekeepers is no small accomplishment. Do it